It’s Ruby Tuesday again! For your crimson viewing pleasure today, I’ve selected a cross-section from all four of the Walt Disney World theme parks in Orlando.

It’s a Small World, MAGIC KINGDOM
I want you all to know that it is in the interest of primacy and latency that I lovingly dish up the entrance to “It’s A Small World”. It’s a proven theory of learning that the first thing on the list and the last thing on the list are the things you will remember the best. So now, your brain will be humming “It’s a small world after all, it’s a small world after all….” ALL DAY! What a gift, huh? How cool am I – don’t you just wanna be best friends for evah? Bwahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa 😈

World Showcase, EPCOT
I know, that was cruel. And I’m sorry, truly I am. To make it up to you, I will now tell you a bunch of interesting things to try and make you forget that song that your obsessive-compulsive brain is repeating over and over, ad nauseum, ad infinitum…. OK here’s a door. It’s actually a gate. It’s located in the World Showcase at EPCOT. Look, you can see the gap between the two parts of the gate. What’s back there? I’ll tell you… I’m not sure! I have been back there precisely once, in the year 2000. I was in Walt Disney World for a conference. I think my SIL (Chez Bro’s wife) was with me – I imported her one year to keep me company, and I’m pretty sure this was the year. The Millenium Village was back there. From what I can remember (hey it was 9 years ago), there was a big tent with lots of tables and demonstration areas and booths representing a plethora of countries that are not present in the World Showcase. I believe actually that Israel was the primary occupant of the tent, but there were other countries back there too.

The only other time I’ve seen this gate open was a couple of years ago. I was passing by at twilight, and there was a private party going on back there. It was all shiny and bright and lit up back there, and heavenly aromas of delicious food emanated from within. I was like a little orphan child with her nose pressed to the glass. Man, when I grow up, I wanna be invited to a party behind the big gate with the “WS” (for “World Showcase”) on it.

Chinese Theater, DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
This statue is a piece of the awesome detail work from the exterior of Disney’s replica of the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California. Times were, you could enter Disney-MGM Studios oops I mean Disney’s Hollywood Studios and see this iconic work of art/architecture waiting for you at the end of the boulevard. Nowadays, what you get is The Big-Ass Hat. It’s a shame really, because the theater is quite beautiful. I’ve read that the Disney version has some details on it that no longer exist on the Hollywood version, so it looks like Disney made an effort to duplicate the original from it’s very earliest days. This structure houses Disney’s Great Movie Ride, an attraction that delivers the Guests to tableaux from famous Hollywood productions like Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, Indiana Jones, and many other classics. I have to say that I like the queue for The Great Movie Ride nearly as much as the ride itself. Sometimes I’m so wrapped up in watching the continuous loop of clips from famous movie classics, I don’t want to go on the ride when it’s finally my turn – I just want to stand there and watch some more!

A snack shack, DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM
Ah, finally – we’ve made it to the Animal Kingdom. This park is my second favorite behind EPCOT. The art and architecture can be whimsical, colorful and folk-ish in certain areas of the park. This snack shack is one such example. If you click the picture, you’ll see a larger version in Flickr. You might be able to see that there are hints as to what sort of snacks are sold there built right into the artwork that adorns the building. Yep, those are pretzels and bottles of Coca Cola. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, that’s our Ruby Tuesday tour of the Disney parks – now, if you want to see more Ruby Tuesday photos, just click your heels together three times… I mean, click the ruby slippers below, and you will be instantly transported to a list of participants.

For the second week in a row, I take it as a personal challenge to use photos from Disney that meet the requirements for all three of these Monday photo memes – Manic Monday, Mellow Yellow Monday and Blue Monday.

Last October, I attended a geek conference at the Walt Disney World Dolphin hotel. I stayed next door at Disney’s Yacht Club resort. Conference weeks are totally exhausting. You arrive full of vim and vigor on Saturday and go to the parks. Sunday you ease into the conference thing by attending your first session at 11:00 am – the “soft opening” of the conference, if you will. When you’re done, you go to EPCOT to get some dinner at the Food and Wine Festival and stay late, eating and drinking – and blogging! You wander back to the hotel after the park closes and in the morning, the fun begins in earnest.

Monday morning comes and *BAM* – 7:00 am breakfast tent/industry networking opportunity, then the keynote address, followed by an insane mixture of sessions, seminars, logging into work to check email, picking up voice mail, returning calls, averting crises, rinse and repeat. At the end of the day, you might go down to the Expo floor and see what goodies the vendors are giving away (the conference hosts themselves had uncommonly decent ballpoint pens last year!). And then you head off to EPCOT again, because you are in Disney World, and it’s just a short walk away, and your Florida resident annual pass is burning a hole in your pocket, and food and wine as yet unknown are calling AND the park is open until 9:00 PM.

Along about Wednesday, I was starting to get tired, and actually left the park before Illuminations even began. As I ambled up to the Yacht Club, I realized it was movie night! There was a screen set up with parents and kids snuggled down on loungers watching Cars. I dallied to watch a scene or two and suddenly there were popping sounds and people running out to the beach to see. I turned around and there was the moon, high over the Beach Club resort, with the colorful fireworks from Illuminations visible above the rooftops.

Spring is coming, and you know what that means – soon it will be time for the Flower and Garden Festival at EPCOT in Walt Disney World! I am positively enamored of the Flower and Garden Festival. I used to be quite the garden geek back in the day, before I moved to a place where I have NO idea what is growing on the side of the road. It’s kind of disconcerting not to be able to identify any of the trees or shrubs or flowers that are in my own front yard! Yet when I go to the Flower and Garden Festival, I can identify stuff, thus re-inflating my sense of self-worth. (Pssst… if by chance I cannot identify it, guess what? They’ve got signs on practically EVERYTHING! 😉 )

Somewhere in my travels across the internet, I have heard Disney’s character topiaries referred to as “The Chlorophyll Zoo”. Now, it is true that not all of the topiaries you’ll find at Disney World are animals. Just a few weeks ago, I featured topiaries of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and despite Dopey’s big, floppy ears, none of these can be accused of being a critter. Even today’s topiary critters are suspect; they’ve all got some anthropomorphic qualities. Well, all except for Pluto. While Goofy, who is a dog, walks upright and speaks and has “hands” instead of front paws, Pluto, who is also a dog, was introduced in a cartoon short during the 1930s as Mickey Mouse’s puppy! And typically, you will see pluto on all fours. So technically, only one of today’s subjects is actually a critter through and through. The rest of them are suspect

Back to the subject of topiaries – often you will find that Disney topiary supplies are offered for sale in Downtown Disney or at the festival itself. The frames can be rather pricey, but if you keep looking online, you can sometimes find a bargain. I’ve seen smaller versions of the ones you see here; I think most of these are taller than I am, and at 5’7″, I am not short. The smaller ones are about two feet high and I hear tell they take quite a bit of sphagnum moss and fishing line to get them set up. I’ve also seen very small table-top sized versions of a Mickey Mouse topiary for sale at the Flower and Garden Festival. The larger ones are started at least a year, if not more, before the Festival at which they debut. There must be a greenhouse somewhere on property with a dozen or so of each character in various stages of it’s life cycle – some just starting, some halfway there, and some ready to take their place in the landscaping of the parks

The year these photos were taken, the theme was pirates. Peter Pan, Hook, Smee and the pirate ship all graced the front entrance of EPCOT, with Spaceship Earth making an iconic backdrop for the scene. Meanwhile, in the World Showcase Plaza, Mickey and the gang were posed around a “treasure chest” with ivy and golden blossoms spilling out of it. I had my oldest niece with me; it was her graduation gift to be taken to Disney World.

In the middle of this coming May, my very youngest niece, just 4 years old, will be making her first visit to Walt Disney World. I’m not sure she will be paying attention to the topiaries. She’ll be too busy being excited over the prospect of having a meal at Cinderella’s Royal Table. Auntie Tink *~*~* recently sent her a lovely Cinderella costume that she’ll be wearing for her visit to the castle, complete with dainty slippers, tiara, and earrings that don’t pinch but she’s afraid they will, so she won’t try them on 😉 Bro. No. 2 says she’ll get over it by time she heads up to the Royal Table. She will be beyond adorable with or without them, I’m sure!

I’m pretty sure that wolves probably never lived on Sanibel Island, at least not since the advent of the internet (go on, google it…. I’ll wait….. ok, satisfied? 😀 ). However, if wolves DID live on Sanibel Island, they would have been HOWLING last week! The moon was just stunning in the east, as the sun set in the west. As twilight closed in, a whispy gray cloud drifted by, obscuring La Luna Bella for the briefest of moments. When the veil lifted, the sun had set, and it was time to get in the Sad Lane and go home.

Have you ever noticed how Disney is always having some sort of “special” celebration or festival or anniversary event? Every year, it’s always something. 100 Years of Magic! The Year – no make that TWO Years – Of A Million Dreams! Millennium Celebration! The year I snapped this one, they were having The Happiest Celebration On Earth, but for the life of me, I cannot remember what da heck they were celebrating. Oh yeah, maybe it was the 50th anniversary of Disneyland in Anaheim, California. All the Disney parks from around the world sort of “swapped” attractions. EPCOT in Orlando got a brand new attraction that year called Soarin’. It’s a duplicate of the Soarin’ Over California attraction at Disney’s California Adventure theme park in Anaheim. My favorite part is when you soar over the river and you can smell the pines…. and it SEEMS like you can kick all the rafters and other boaters in the head!

One of the “special” annual events that I actually like and therefore won’t make (too much) fun of is the Food and Wine Festival. Some of you have watched me mobile blog my way around the countries in the World Showcase in EPCOT, eating and drinking a path through the festival. Some of you have even been “drunk-dialed” while I was doing this 😉 Fortunately, I never had to drive home. It is only a short walk out the International Gateway and back to the hotel. Well at that hour of the night, it’s more like a meander. But I do eventually get back to the hotel!

Here’s one of the temporary oops, I meant to say “special” Food and Wine Festival kiosks that are sprinkled between and around the normal country pavilions of the World Showcase. I believe I had the Sha Cha Chicken. Yes, I looked it up just now – I DID have the sha cha chicken, which I found to be “eh” but with it, I had a “mango gingerita” that was devine. Damn it was FINE. I wish I was back there right now! Actually, I wish I’d gotten the recipe for the mango gingerita! Here’s the link to see what Sha Cha Chicken and a Mango Gingerita look like

“Candygram… Landshark!” OK, who besides me is old enough to remember where that line came from? 😀 No googling now, that’s cheating!

My oldest niece LOVES Pocky. Last May I picked some up in the Japan pavilion at EPCOT and mailed it to her. I guess you could say I sent her a candygram. Unfortunately, it melted in the heat, but she says it was still edible! Don’t tell her but I think it might have been melted BEFORE I mailed it and not enroute. I did make a stop at Downtown Disney on the way home, with the candy in my luggage, and it was pretty hot that day…. Since then, she has discovered a local place where she can buy Pocky unmelted. I bet she’s relieved!

Universe of Energy Ellen Degeneres stars in this attraction, along with Bill Nye The Science Guy. It’s an informative show, and I like the message about different ways to produce energy besides fossil fuels.

It’s my big ambition in life to get this same shot, only with the monorail going by. And everything is in focus. Well a girl with no schooling or skill in photography can dream, can’t she? I love the cobalt blue of the Universe of Energy icon contrasting with the yellow of the flowers. Blue and yellow together have to be one of the world’s best color combinations.

But ma, I swear, it SPOKE to me! This festive-looking trash receptacle is primarily a teal blue and a golden yellow. It was found in the 2008 Food and Wine Festival center, which was located in the former Wonders of Life building. It’s fun, but at the same time a shock, to walk into an attraction that used to be all about little kids, and find it filled with racks and racks of international wines!

Some of the trash cans at Walt Disney World talk – this isn’t one of them, but there IS one in EPCOT. Can you name the places in Walt Disney World where you can find a talking trash can?

2008 Food and Wine Festival Disney went for an Alice In Wonderland tea party theme for last year’s Food and Wine Festival. It was lame. I’m not saying Alice In Wonderland is lame; the execution of the theme for the festival was lame. It was so painfully obvious that Disney did it on the cheap. Totally not up to their standards, IMO.

I waited for this shot and I’m happy with it. The fountain show was going on and I caught the spray in front of the geosphere/Spaceship Earth, with the scene from Alice In Wonderland in the foreground.

Looking for the infamous Valentine Essay? CLICK HEREclick any photo to see a larger version in Flickr

Wandering through the Asia “land” of Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, you’ll eventually come upon a waterside shrine, laden with many gifts of food, candles and trinkets strewn upon it. “Mount Everest” looms large in the distance, a dramatic, snow-capped backdrop for this sacred spot in the village of Anandapur. But who is it a shrine TO? We must get a little closer to investigate…

It’s a rather strange and ferocious-looking creature, is it not? Somewhat like a bear or an ape, walking erect with claws extended, it is clearly revered by the people who have come to lay down treasures before this statue of it. Since that is “Everest” in the distance, we can be sure that we are approaching the Himalayas, and that can only mean that this feared-revered creature is none other than the fabled Abominable Snowman, a.k.a., the Yeti. This creature has been the subject of countless expeditions and studies by scientists, writers and adventurers for several centuries.

The people of the Himalayas have made the Yeti the subject of much of their local art and folk lore. The Yeti is the stuff of legend, much like “Big Foot” a.k.a. Sasquatch in North America. Primatologists, anthropologists and many other types of -ologists, I’m sure, have studied such evidence as footprints and hairs left behind by this creature, but no evidence has thus far been deemed conclusive insofar as proving the existence of the Yeti.

The Yeti so captures the human imagination, there have been expeditions in search of one as recently as 2008, when a band of Japanese researchers went off adventuring into the Himalayas to see if they could find one. Scientists routinely test “evidence”, usually hairs that are claimed to have come from a yeti, but DNA results indicate that they are always some other type of animal, chiefly bears. That region of Tibet enjoys the presence of three different types of bears – blue, brown and red, and the word “yeti” seems to be derived from two Tibetan words, one for “bear” and the other for “rocky place”. Given the location, “rocky place” does make sense.

One of the pet theories that has been floated now and then about both the Yeti and Big Foot is that somehow, the gigantopithecus giant ape from the Pleistocene era has survived and is alive and well and living in the Himalayas. It’s a nice theory, but most scientists agree that gigantopithecus was a quadruped, which would not explain why the Yeti is able to climb up Disney’s Expedition Everest attraction on two legs while ripping up the tracks with his hands! I guess those fans of the gigantopithecus theory have not been to Disney World recently.

Respectively, that was the sun rising behind the WDW Swan hotel, the sun reflecting off the front of the WDW Dolphin hotel, and my fellow Long Island transplants watching the SpectroMagic parade in the Magic Kingdom that evening – Barbara, Austin, Lexie and Debbie In Paradise.

By now, repeat visitors here at My Mobile Adventures really get it – there is no shortage of RED stuff in Walt Disney World. That’s a good thing for me, because I’ve taken lots and lots of photos in the Disney theme parks and resorts. This leaves me with a great deal of material for Mary’s wonderful Ruby Tuesday photo meme.

Here we have a sign that proclaims us “welcome”; I found it in the Asia section of the park. I think we could assume that the lettering above is “welcome” in maybe Hindi. There was a visitor last time I posted a sign from this section of the Animal Kingdom who translated for us (I think it might have been the Coca Cola post). I sure hope that visitor comes back and tells us it is “welcome” and not “eat at Joe’s” or something equally ridiculous! 😀

Kali River Rapids is the Animal Kingdom’s “E” ticket water ride. You ride along in a giant inner tube raft which spins and twists and plummets its way along a “river”. There are parts where a waterfall will get you if you aren’t careful, and there’s another part where you go under a bridge – on the bridge are other guests who have stopped there for the express purpose of shooting at the occupants of your raft with Disney-provided water guns. They take great pleasure in doing so, too. You are guaranteed to exit this ride fairly well drenched. I don’t like walking around the park for the rest of the day with wet underwear clinging to my butt, so I tend to wear quick-dry shorts and carry an extra pair of undies and a plastic bag for the wet ones.

Here’s one of my favorite signs in all of Walt Disney World. There’s a bird show called Flights of Wonder at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It takes place on the Caravan Stage. I love the tapestry look of this sign, a banner really, and all the multi-colored prayer flags waving in the breeze close by. A few months ago, I posted a video of the “gacking owl” which was taken by Niece No. 2 about this time last year. Well, that owl is a part of the pre-show for Flights of Wonder on the Caravan Stage. If you are hot and cranky and just want to sit, cool off and be entertained for a while, this is the place to head for.

Hope you enjoyed these RED signs from Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I’m pretty sure there will be more RED Disney signs in our future! 😀

It’s 61 degrees F here in Southwest Florida today, and I’m fixin’ to take a run out to Sanibel Island to do the Sunday Sanibel Bar Crawl with friends. Unfortunately, I’m having a couple of wardrobe issues, none of which can quite be termed a “malfunction”, yet troubling none the less.

First off, it would seem that I have clothing for extremes – shorts, or LL Bean flannel-lined jeans – but nothing for these 61-degree-in-between times. Secondly, it would also seem that things are not pristine within the hallowed walls of the walk-in closet in the master suite. There are empty hangers, which means either a) I don’t have enough clothes, or b) there’s stuff in the dryer that I never hung up. I have a lot of blue clothes and a lot of yellow too, don’t I? My fave colors are blue and yellow, so that’s a good thing! 🙂 Also, a lot of them are Disney clothes. Yes I know how old I am, you don’t have to remind me. I draw the line at Pooh, ok? Tinker Bell and Mickey Mouse are fine, but there is NO POOH in this closet!

Disarray abounds. There are shoes on the floor, conveniently located next to the shoe rack, which has empty cubby holes…. The luggage is supposed to nest, but it appears that it has not only nested, but given birth as well, for pieces of it have sprawled over what remains of the visible floor after the shoes. I am embarassed to show you the rest of the closet. Crap, none of this is solving my dilemma – WHAT SHALL I WEAR?

I’ll be mobile blogging a little later on, so if you want to see what’s going on with the Sunday Sanibel Bar Crawl, scroll down past this sticky post!

Ring-billed gulls, and “the circle of life”

click any photo to see the bigger version in FlickrEarlier this week, I posted a photo of shore birds feasting upon some scallops that had been stranded by the tide. I realized that I didn’t know what the birds were called, so I went through some recent photos to see if I could find a close up. Here’s a shot from early in January, and according to my National Audubon Society Field Guide to Florida, this is a ring-billed gull. You can see that there is, indeed, a ring around his yellow bill. According to Audubon, this bird migrates north for the summer, but non-breeders will probably stick around here.Last week, when my friend Kim and I were at the beach, we encountered a pile of shells that had been tossed up onto the shore by the tide. As we pawed through the pile for treasures, we found many scallops had been stranded with the empties. Some were still alive, as evidenced by their nervous chattering as we came near. Yes, they do that thing that you see them do in the old cartoons – they open and shut rapidly, trying to scare us away with the clatter, I guess. Usually, when I find a live one, I will endeavor to place it back in the water. But then I began to notice that humans aren’t the only ones interested in a pile of shells.The ring-billed gulls were feasting! And here I thought, with all the hubris and inflated sense of importance that a human can muster, that we were doing the scallops a favor by giving them a “second chance”. It’s not really a carnage that humans need to “fix” (oh, we are such fixers, we humans, aren’t we?). As often happens, it dawned upon me in the lyrics:

Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life…

Yeah, I did. I burst into song. I think Kim laughed at me, but I don’t mind. If you’re embarrassed 😳 by people who are prone to bursting into song, don’t go shelling with me 😆 . The point is, the scallops had found “their place on the path unwinding”. It was right there, on the beach, waiting for a ring-billed gull to come along and decide it looked tasty.
The scallops, they have their purpose. They don’t have to think about it, or struggle to discover what it is they are meant to do. The Circle Of Life just kind of takes care of that for them. Not so much for us humans. We often struggle to find our place. For many of us, it’s not all that clear what we are meant to do with our lives.
Sometimes, I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be when I grow up. If “when I grow up” should ever happen, I’ll be sure to let y’all know.RESOURCES

Cornell University has a cool bird site, with sound samples. Click here if you want to hear ring-billed gulls laughing (it opened Quicktime for me; your mileage may vary!).

Download The Circle of Life MP3 file from Disney’s THE LION KING, performed by Elton John. Amazon also has DVDs of the film and its sequels, the entire film soundtrack (CD or MP3 download), and my personal favorite, the original Broadway production sountrack.

Six Mile Cypress Sky

click the photo to see the version posted to Flickr

Sky so blue and clouds
so puffy, filtered through the
branches of the trees.

SIX MILE CYPRESS SLOUGH is a beautiful strip of wetland woods that isn’t actually six miles – it’s about nine miles long and maybe a third of a mile wide. The slough (pronouced “slew”, rhymes with “you” – yeah, I had to look it up!) runs alongside Six Mile Cypress Parkway, just north of Daniels Parkway in Fort Myers. Migratory birds like to take a pit-stop here to fatten up for their long journeys hither and yon. People come to walk through the preserve, which you might think is icky if you didn’t know that they’ve built a raised boardwalk so you’re not slogging through the swamp. 😀

I use Six Mile Cypress Parkway when I am driving to or coming home from Sanibel Island, and I always pass the sign that advertises the days of the week and the times for the guided nature walks, and think to myself that I’m going to have to play sick one of these work days and just go and do it! I think I will ring up my friend Snowbird for this particular adventure, as she has expressed interest in the past. I’ve been through there by myself, in the hot muggy summertime; this photo was taken in the Slough July 25th 2005, which was the trip I made down here to go house hunting. I had to wear a ton of bug spray, and my tour ended when the skies opened up and let loose a torrential summer rain, so typical of this area during rainy season. Yep, gonna have to do this soon, before the temps turn sultry and the air turns buggy again.

And after we do that, maybe I’ll play hookey again and we’ll do the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary down in Naples, Florida. 😉 It’s an Audubon site!

The color RED makes a strong showing in the Disney theme parks in Orlando, Florida. Perhaps that’s the reason that so many of my Ruby Tuesday posts are laden with photos taken at Walt Disney World.

This dragon topiary was photographed at the Flower and Garden Festival, which takes place in EPCOT each spring. Red is the predominant color at the China pavilion, which is no surprise because red is the most significant color in Chinese culture. From the Chinese flag to the emblem of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, red represents China like no other color.

In 2005, the theme of the Flower and Garden Festival revolved around “hidden” Mickeys. There were 50 of them hidden in the park in connection with the festival. Some were more obvious than others. They could be anything from an arrangement of stones on the bottom of a pool to this giant, red, not-so-hidden Mickey on the banks of one of the lagoons. It’s made up of hundreds of flowering plants in bloom. You might think that this one was sort of a “gimmee” because it is so big, but I think that sometimes, the best “hiding” place is right out in the open.

Here’s another water-side display, this time in the shape of a colossal red
butterfly. If you click through to the larger version of the photo, you will see that there are butterfly topiaries behind it. This display was near the butterfly house, a mesh tent that contains a butterfly garden and LOTS of butterflies. There are cocoons in there too, but I’ve never been lucky enough to be present while one was hatching. In the background on the right, you can see the tall spire from a defunct attraction called The Wonders of Life. Sometimes the Wonders of Life pavilion is used as a Festival Center. Last year when I was there in October, this pavilion was filled with food-related merchandise and racks and racks of bottles of wine during the Food and Wine Festival.

And speaking of Food and Wine, it’s time to switch festivals. Here’s a display that I found in the temporary “Louisiana” section of the 2008 Food and Wine Festival at EPCOT. This display represents the classic ingredients in Louisiana cooking. I didn’t recognize even half of these brand names, so I guess they are either local to Louisiana, or maybe they are memorabilia-type representations of classic ingredients from the past. Anyone out there from Louisiana that could enlighten us?

To give you an idea of scale, people were hoisting their little kids on top of the can that says “Delta….” to take a picture of them – until a Cast Member came over and asked them to stop. Spoil sport! 😀 Included in the display are a giant bottle of red wine, and a smaller red bottle that looks like it might be the equivalent of Tabasco.

This little vegetable garden was just across the path from the ingredients display. A little sign in the garden stated that these are the typical vegetables that go into Louisiana cooking. I see onions, parsley, several varieties of peppers that include some red ones and … not sure what all else was growing in there. It kind of made me all misty-eyed for the days when I had my own little organic potager growing in the yard… and then I remembered all the back-breaking work it is to grow vegetables, and I got over it!